


Firefight

by roselightsaber



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Clone Wars era, Gen, M/M, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-26
Updated: 2016-12-26
Packaged: 2018-09-12 11:25:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9069463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roselightsaber/pseuds/roselightsaber
Summary: Baze and Chirrut spar and squabble, but they don't have a real fight until Baze leaves Jedha.





	

Baze and Chirrut have had plenty of skirmishes. They spent half their childhood picking on each other and turning practice sparring matches into full-on brawls, though the other half was spent being the best of friends, totally inseparable. The duality carries into their teens–before they hit sixteen their philosophies have already diverged wildly, and debates become shouting matches, often across the otherwise silent halls of the temple. And before they turn twenty they’re also madly in love with one another, and the others in service to the temple have gotten used to the unorthodox pair. At least they don’t try to goad each other into childish quarrels anymore, and they learn to modulate their lively debates, eventually, too.

They don’t get into a full-blown fight until Baze leaves.

Baze gets called up to travel with one of the elders–a long journey, and a dangerous one, in an ever more unstable galaxy. And for reasons he still can’t completely explain, for the first time in his life, he hides something from Chirrut. The other doesn’t look for deception in him. He has no reason to. Furrowing his brows, his sensitive, endlessly perceptive partner touches his cheek, and asks him what’s wrong, as they lay down to sleep.

Baze kisses him goodnight and tells him not to worry so much, and is long gone by the time Chirrut awakens. He refuses transmissions for three more days.

When Baze finally answers Chirrut’s call, he swears he can feel the other’s anger halfway across the galaxy. The other looks so furious, so hurt, Baze can hardly bear to look at the screen. Neither speaks for a long time, but Chirrut, of course, is first to break the silence. “I felt you go,” He croaks, voice hoarse. “It was like–like–waking up deaf. I thought–”

“I’m all right, Chirrut. I’ll be home soon.”

“Master Anyu says it could be _months_. I can sense so much darkness around you, Baze.” His voice cracks. “You didn’t even say goodbye.”

“If I’d stopped to think, I wouldn’t have been able to go.”

“So you just  _abandoned me?!”_  It’s not fair. That word is too charged for both of them, Baze thinks. He knows full well he hurt the other, but that still has him bristling.

“I did not _abandon_  you, I’m coming back.”

It’s not until he almost doesn’t come home that he realizes just how wrong it was to leave him.

Nothing good comes of traveling far into the Outer Rim, but at least Master Dhava, the temple elder he’s set to guard, has the foresight to recruit the best for protection. Baze is tall and broad and intimidating, well-armored with an assortment of his favorite blasters on hand, leading the way. Two other recruits–Vana and Issam–walk further back with the master. They’re younger than Baze, and newer to the temple, having joined as young teens, and armed to the teeth as well, even if they don’t carry it quite as well as Baze Malbus. They’re monks made to fight; Baze is a warrior constantly trying to mold himself into a spiritual man. But they’re all there for the same thing–artifact retrieval, some old relic long-ago looted from the temple. A holocron, Dhava had called it–an asinine thing to fly across the galaxy for, even worse to meet a shady character for, and nothing to die for, in Baze’s eyes. But that is an assessment firmly dependent on the same personal code that brought him here, unable to refuse the call to duty. Not telling Chirrut he was leaving is _not_  one of those rules–that’s some other deep-down, avoidant, broken-hearted thing he can’t begin to reflect on now.

Dhava freezes mid-stride as they approach the meeting place. Something is wrong–Baze isn’t as adept with the Force as others ( _as Chirrut_ ) but he can feel it. One of the younger guardians–Issam, a stern-looking young man–suddenly comes charging up from the back and Baze can only half-shout _wait_  before the explosion rips through the air. All action, as usual, Baze spins and pushes the other two back on pure instinct. “Take him,” He tells the other shaking guardian of Master Dhava. “Get back to the ship and bring it around.”

“But Issam–my–” Baze follows their eyeline to the fallen warrior, and Chirrut’s face flashes across his mind’s eye.

He places a firm had on the other’s shoulder. “All is as the Force wills it. I’ll do what I can for him, I promise.”

Vana nods, the sort of hardened, accepting look Baze has come to know too well crossing their face as they turn to go, sheltering the master in a hail of return fire at–at what? Baze can’t believe he’s been so easily distracted by the emotion of the moment. But it’s horribly clear soon enough–a modified CIS shuttle of some kind, heavy artillery wielded on sloppily but to admittedly effective results. It was surely stolen– _not that the CIS wasn’t a big enough piece of shit on their own,_ Baze mused. _Fighting with droids like cowards while other living beings fought and died for their causes._ But this was something else, something distinctly mercenary. So the question isn’t why are they firing on monks, but who asked them to, though both questions are a little enigmatic to start considering while he’s trying not to get disintegrated.

Baze makes a run for his fallen fellow Guardian–Issam, the other had said. Probably a local, going by the name. Probably joined up with the temple to try to do some good, or to try to survive, at least. Just like himself, just like Chirrut. And the way the other guardian looked at him was telling, and very familiar. In other circumstances it would have put a smile on his face to think of how many in service of the temple were just like Chirrut and him, finding something more to which to dedicate themselves than prayer and training. He will not leave Issam behind, Baze decides, no matter what. He swings around his repeater cannon and fires a barrage of bolts as the ship comes in for another pass. Civilians are scattering–another complication. Baze wants to lead the ship further away from occupied streets, but first he has to get to that brave lunatic Issam, or to his body; he’s not sure which.

It’s a dangerous move but it’s all he has. He pulls the rocket launcher off his back and runs to position, feeling the heat of ion bolts on his heels. “Come on, come on,” He grumbles aloud as he rushes to take aim, firing without the luxury of well-timed precision. He strikes the craft but not at the angle he’d half-targeted, and there isn’t much time to drag himself to his feet and rush to Issam. A searing heat strikes his shoulder and his vision goes black for a moment from the shock. He hits the ground and rolls, still making his way toward Issam, but when he goes to reach for him only one arm responds. “Brother Issam,” He shouts over the roar of the shuttle careening much too low overhead, about to crash but still trying to come around for another shot. “Come on. Your partner is waiting.” This seems to stir the other though his injuries are grave. Blood pours down his face and Baze isn’t much better off, but he’s already made too many mistakes on this mission.

Baze throws himself over Issam as the shuttle wobbles and crashes much too close, cannons blazing the whole way down. Baze doesn’t remember what happens next, but he knows he shoots the pilot that stumbles out of the craft before he can fire on them, and that somehow he’s alive, with Issam half-slung over a shoulder he can’t move–and that another blast rocks them both before he can focus his eyes on what’s happening, and he falls hard, for the first time in a long time praying, both for Issam and his partner, and for the chance to see Chirrut again.

The explosion, though it knocks him to the ground again, is a saving grace this time–Vana, in the gunwell of the incoming shuttle, blasting apart their attacker. They’re a crack shot for being mostly untrained–perhaps attributable to an affinity for the Force like Chirrut’s. Baze awakens a few times as they make their escape, but he can’t remember anything but glimpses: Dhava dragging them both onto the ship, Issam weakly asking for Vana, lying on the shuttle floor while the others did what they could. Finally, coming around again to find himself in the med bay in the temple, feeling warm sunlight come over him.

Except there’s no sunlight when he opens his eyes, just dim panel lights, and Chirrut’s hand on his face, soothing and familiar. He whispers his name and the other leans close until their foreheads touch.

“I’m still angry with you,” He murmurs. “But I’d be much angrier if you’d died.”

“I’m sorry,” He manages to say, though his mouth is dry as the desert and the words seem to rub his throat raw on the way out.

“Be quiet.” It’s mostly an admonishment to rest, but there’s no hiding how betrayed Chirrut still feels. “Master Dhava told me what you did, you brave fool.”

“I didn’t–Vana saved us, I just–”

“I said be quiet.” He presses a finger to his lips, gently though the message is rather harsh. “You were brave in the end but leaving me was cowardly. And I’m still angry.” Baze tries to reach up to him but that arm still protests, and Chirrut lays his hand on his aching tricep. “Don’t try to move that. You got hit hard there.” Fingers move up his shoulder and it _hurts_  but somehow the touch is still soothing. “You’re all scarred here. You’re lucky we had bacta stored, you might have lost that arm all together. Even here…” His hand is on his face again, tracing a line up his cheek, past his eye–one that wasn’t there before. “They’re lucky I wasn’t there.” Rightly hurt and angry as he still is, his voice starts to soften, to take on that sweet, amused tone he’s used to. “Tearing up this handsome face. I would have pulled the ship out of the sky.”

He sighs his partner’s name and reaches up with his other hand to touch the other’s where it lay against his face. He wants to make some joke, ask him how he’s so sure he was even handsome before, or what difference it makes to him. But he’s too thankful for the chance to have him by his side again. “I’m sorry,” He says again, because it’s all he can think to say. “So sorry.”

“Still not listening to me,” Chirrut murmurs, running his fingers through Baze’s shaggy hair. “Always so stubborn. And now you want to be talkative after so many years not saying anything. _And_ you ran off on me. Why do I love you at all?”

“That’s a good question.”

“No it’s not. Be quiet.” He kisses his forehead. “And get better. And get strong again, because I’m not going to let you get away with leaving me.”

He doesn’t. The second Baze is on his feet again, Chirrut wants answers. He reminds him that they’ve both been abandoned before, that for years they were each other’s sole lifeline. “What would happen to me if you didn’t come back?”

“I had to go, Chirrut. But I should have told you.”

“You didn’t say goodbye, just to spare yourself the trouble?”

“To spare us both. Would you have simply let me go?”

“No…” They’re finally far enough into this healing process that Chirrut will lean on his shoulder, more overcome with relief at having him home alive than he is with anger now. “But I know I couldn’t have stopped you.”

“I’m not good at goodbyes.”

“You should have tried. For me.” Chirrut isn’t one to speak of himself that way, nor to make many demands, and it gives Baze pause.

“I should have.” He agrees, curling an arm around him, praying he won’t pull away. “Can you ever forgive me?”

There’s a silence that seems somehow longer than Baze’s entire journey. “I forgive you,” He says carefully. “But I need to know that it will not happen again.”

“I swear, Chirrut.” He pulls him closer. “No matter where you go, I’ll be right beside you.”

“My protector,” He says with a wry smile. “You’re forgiven, but you still have to make it up to me.”

“If it takes the rest of my life, I will.”

 

They still fight, from time to time, but both have learned just how much they need each other. Before they turn thirty, they marry, and Baze thinks of what he almost missed out on as he promises Chirrut the rest of his life for the second time.

Baze follows Chirrut for the rest of their lives and then some.


End file.
